"Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991."

Ken Adelman, former U.N. ambassador, in an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, Feb. 13, 2002:

"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps.

Vice President Dick Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press" March 16:

"The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that...My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside."

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a breakfast meeting March 4, 2003:

"What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. The best way to do that is have such a shock on the system, the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on the end is inevitable."

That took me less than five minutes on Google. I assure you, there's LOTS more of it where that came from.

Even now today hes using terrorists in suicide bomb attacks against our people.

Newsflash: when soldiers attack other soldiers, it's not terrorism. Terrorism isn't defined by your methods - the kamikaze pilots of Japan in World War II weren't terrorists. Terrorists are defined by their targets, namely civilians. If you attack soldiers, they're perfectly valid military targets.

Here you proved my point that no one said a week. A "short" war is a few months. This war IS a cakewalk compared to Korea,Vietnam or WWII.Weve pushed all the way to Baghdad with ONE heavy army division,a lighter Marine Division,the The airborne divisions and a bunch of Special forces. Thats fucking amazing. And we have lost less than 100 lives. While preserving as much civilian casualties as possible. Thats unheard of in the history of modern warfare. I want to ask people "what the fuck do you want?" Weve invaded another nation. Ask a WWII vet that landed at Normandy if HE thinks that this is a cakewalk compared to what he did.

I think rockdotcom just had a poor choice of words. You can't just take any politican or retired general's opinion and treat it like the official White House position.

Richard Perle: "Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991."

Great. So he can't invade Kuwait again, but is still doing everything to protect his country and his life, including violating many "rules" of conventional warfare.

Ken Adelman: "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger and (4) now we're playing for keeps."

Well good for Ken Adelman's opinion. But there's a big difference in defeating the army in Kuwait and defeating ALL of the Iraqi military. We have made it to Baghdad in less than 3 weeks. That seems pretty good to me.

Cheney: "The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that...My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside."

This seems to be true also - with thousands of soldiers surrendering and civilians flocking to coalition forces and all. I'm sure there'd be more, if civilians weren't being used as shields or killed trying to escape.

Gen. Myers: "What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. The best way to do that is have such a shock on the system, the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on the end is inevitable."

So? Yes, this is what we'd like. There. What else would he say? Even better: How bout if Saddam and all the soldiers give up or kill themselves now - we'd like that even better. This isn't being stated as fact, just a best-case scenario. We ARE in Baghdad after 17 days. Granted, this is where things are supposed to get worse.